Ubuntu is pretty and all, but it can be so frustrating to try to fix when something is wrong. I spent about 3 hours trying to get it to connect to a share on my server (it kept claiming a bad password), and my poking at it eventually made the Ubuntu shares disappear from the server as well.

I remembered I had a spare copy of XP, so I just said, screw it!

Let's see, to mount a drive in Linux, you have to type in a bunch of totally cryptic commands then edit the fstab file if you want it to mount at startup. To mount a drive in XP, you just plug it in. If you change the video card, X crashes when you boot. If you swap cards in Windows, it justs defaults to mimimum settings and asks for new drivers.

Linux still needs a LOT of work before it'll ever replace Windows. This is the 21st Century, you'd think everything would be plug & play and GUI by now....

I think I'm also going to wipe the weather station machine and install 2000 on it. While it's possible to make 98 relatively stable if you don't push it too hard, this weather station apparently is too much for it. I'll need to see just how far I can strip 2000 down, since it really only needs the serial port and basic networking.

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I spent about 3 hours trying to get it to connect to a share on my server (it kept claiming a bad password), and my poking at it eventually made the Ubuntu shares disappear from the server as well.

Samba is frustrating, no? It's definitely a pain to get the authentication stuff working the way you want it, though. Dealing with Samba through the web-based SWAT configuration tool is a easier than editing cryptic text files. I tend to use the all-encompassing web-based administrator's toy, webmin, which works better than one might assume for all sorts of Unix administration. (and it runs on OS-X, too)

Let's see, to mount a drive in Linux, you have to type in a bunch of totally cryptic commands then edit the fstab file if you want it to mount at startup. To mount a drive in XP, you just plug it in.

True, but there's one huge advantage Linux has over Windows. Ever buy an external USB or Firefire drive only to have it not get recognized by Windows, no matter what you do? Or it works on one USB port but not another? Or the USB enclosure is recognized but not the drive? (not even on the Disk Manager) And uninstalling/reinstalling drivers does nothing? This has happened to me three times with USB/Firewire enclosures.

Linux doesn't keep secrets. If a device driver module doesn't find any hardware, it tells you. If it loads but can't find the connected hardware, it tells you. If the drive partition isn't recognized, it tells you. Windows simply gives you 'device not working properly' if at all, and you're lucky if the event log has more information.

If you change the video card, X crashes when you boot. If you swap cards in Windows, it justs defaults to mimimum settings and asks for new drivers.

I agree 150% here. X is not meant to be used by humans. It's a mess, too complicated and slow, and needs to be replaced.

Linux still needs a LOT of work before it'll ever replace Windows. This is the 21st Century, you'd think everything would be plug & play and GUI by now....

As much as I prefer Linux for any server I run, it's never going to catch up to Windows as a mainstream desktop platform. KDE/Gnome are clumsy attempts to clone Windows look and feel and have become even more sluggish than Windows. GnuStep is the only Linux-based environment that appeals to me, and it is basically a clone of what became OS-X.

What would be awesome is if a big company threw money behind developing a completely imaging platform on top of Linux, identically to what Apple did with Aqua for BSD. There's rumors that Google is working on their own OS...